Class canceled: Professor leaves university to join IS

A lecturer at Dammam University informed her students recently that she had left her job to join Islamic State. Eman Mustapha, from Syria, had been lecturing at the university for many years in Islamic economics and origins of jurisprudence.

She was reportedly receiving a substantial salary from the university but left all that behind to join IS and declare allegiance to its so-called caliph, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

Eman was known for her conservatism in religion. It was reported that she was preaching about jihad in women-only gatherings in Dammam, Dhahran and Al-Khobar days before she joined IS.

A university official said Mustapha resigned from her position at the university for “personal reasons”. Eman holds a PhD in jurisprudence from Damascus University.

She was also previously the head of the cultural section at the Commission on Scientific Signs of Qur'an and Sunnah in Dammam. She held classes at the university’s College of Applied Studies and Community Service.

Mustapha had been working at the university for many years and there was no complaint against her. She wrote on her Twitter account that she did not find any injustice at the university but there was “injustice from tyrants” against the Islamic world. In another tweet, she praised IS and its leader.

She told her students on Twitter after they asked about her disappearance that she was trying to find a cave where she could speak freely.

Her students said Mustapha always advised them to become good Muslims and stay away from anything that would harm Islam. They said she disappeared recently and all attempts to contact her through her Facebook and Twitter accounts failed.